The term penetration fighter has been used to describe a long-range

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

designed to penetrate enemy air defences and attack defensive interceptors. The concept is similar to the escort fighter, but differs primarily in that the aircraft would not operate in close concert with

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...

s. Both types are sub-classes of the strategic fighter. The same general mission is also carried out by intruders, but these are generally

night fighter A night fighter (later known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor post-Second World War) is a largely historical term for a fighter aircraft, fighter or interceptor aircraft adapted or designed for effective use at night, during pe ...

s or

light bomber A light bomber is a relatively small and fast type of military bomber aircraft that was primarily employed before the 1950s. Such aircraft would typically not carry more than one ton of ordnance. The earliest light bombers were intended to dr ...

s that do not have the air combat performance of this concept. The presence of the

North American P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in 1940 by a team headed by James H. Kin ...

above Germany allowed

USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

bombers to fly at will over the country, and is considered one of the turning points of the air war. In the post-war period, the development of jet-powered

strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...

s made this role difficult to fill; aircraft with performance to protect the bombers had very short range, and those with the range were propeller designs that could not keep up. The desire for a fighter that could penetrate enemy airspace along with the bombers led to several prototype designs in the early 1950s, including the McDonnell XF-88 Voodoo, Lockheed XF-90 and North American YF-93. In order to be competitive with existing interceptors, these had to be jet powered. The XF-88 was developed into the F-101 Voodoo supersonic penetration fighter-bomber. The

North American XF-108 Rapier The North American XF-108 Rapier was a proposed long-range, high-speed interceptor aircraft designed by North American Aviation intended to defend the United States from supersonic Soviet Union, Soviet strategic bombers. The aircraft would hav ...

project was for a long-range interceptor intended to launch from the continental United States and intercept Soviet bombers while still in the far

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

. This long range meant that if they were launched from forward bases in Europe, Turkey or Alaska, the F-108 would be able to travel a fair distance over the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and help disrupt the defences for the following North American XB-70 bombers. The F-108 was ultimately cancelled in budget cuts."Fact Sheet: North American F-108A Rapier"
, National Museum of the United States Air Force

References

{{Military aircraft types (roles) Fighter aircraft

See also

References